Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure builds on everything we love about the first Beach Buggy Racing. But, much like the original, it fails to reinvent the wheel within the arcade racing genre. Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure is what it says on the tin. You race beach buggies across a vast range of courses and modes throughout the game. Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure, much like the first game, has a great selection of courses and modes. From medieval-themed tracks to time trial modes, the sheer variety adds considerable replayability and variation to an otherwise simple game.
A Classic Arcade Racer
Likewise, the game is fun and addictive to play, offering the fun and fast-paced but silly gameplay we all expect and love from arcade racers. The game has a large variety of powerups and builds upon the first Beach Buggy racing game. The fun and addictive nature of the game combined with the easy to pick up and use controls make the whole buggy racing gameplay experience smooth and fun. The game looks excellent on consoles with a cartoony fresh look.
Despite the praise, Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure, much like the previous game, sticks to tried and tested formula found in classic arcade racers and does not try anything new.
Running out of Gas
Notwithstanding the positives of the game, everything listed above is nothing new in the genre. Most arcade racing games nail the gameplay and aesthetical elements of thier games. Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure is not a bad game but does not add anything new to the already saturated genre. Therefore, it fails to stand out. The game sticks so close to the formula that classic gameplay elements, such as powerups, actually manage to break the game.
Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure has far too many powerups. The sheer quantity of powerups often becomes overwhelming, creating chaos rather than fun, with most powerups being heavily overpowered. Similarly, although the game has a charming soundtrack, there is no variety. Each course’s soundtrack felt like a remix of the classic beach buggy track, with no real depth. Despite racing across a volcano or through a medieval world, the soundtrack sounded near-identical. From this perspective, the soundtrack is relatively poor.
Now it might sound like I’m not too fond of this game, but I am. It successfully does everything a good arcade racer should do. However, that is its problem. The game sticks far too close to the proven arcade racing formula tried and tested by classics such as Mario Kart. Adding nothing new to the genre and, in some cases, even overdoing it.
Verdict
Overall, Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure is not a bad game. It is a good arcade racer that offers excellent reliability, graphics and fun and addictive gameplay. But it is the same old same old, and does not add anything new to the genre. Thus, it does not stand out within the genre, and therefore at best, it isn’t very impressive.
